What's the deal? Thoughts?
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Overpopulation?
I'm not sure about you guys, but I often hear concerns about overpopulation, generally in response to pro-life arguments and the extreme fertility of some families like The Duggars, who are expecting their 19th biological child this spring. I'm not trying to begin a huge abortion debate, although I will tell you that I am pro-life. If you'd like to know why, I'd be happy to tell you my reasons, but I'm not going to engage in a scream-match, crazy-person debate full of name-calling and ad hominem attacks, because I think that those are unnecessary. I'm also not trying to say that everyone should have 19 children, or that it's even fathomable to do so. Nor am I trying to downplay world hunger, or other social problems that are often explained by overpopulation. But I came across this video, and I think it's really interesting, considering that so many issues seem to come back to overpopulation. I'm having html issues, so you'll just have to click here to see the video!
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8 comments:
I'll raise your HTML issues and see you a NO SOUND ON THIS PC issue.
I'll be back.
I'm pro-choice, for a lot of reasons that I'm willing to get into (without yelling! hooray maturity!) but I've never heard the over-population reason. Do people really say that? Wow. I watched the video though, and it definitely made me laugh. I think these people keep forgetting to account for the fact that not only are people BORN, but they do DIE too.
Hmmm, your video is, shall we say, less than a sterling example of critical thinking.
I suggest you do a bit more research, especially on the concepts of "carrying capacity" and "overshoot".
Best book on that topic is "Overshoot" by Wm. Catton
The best single (also calm, rational, and critical thinking rich) website I know of is www.paulchefurka.ca
Perhaps start with his "Elephant In The Room" essay.
Just wanted to stop by and thank you for your sweet comments on your blog :-)
Ya know, I came thisclose to going to Liberty for school, but ended up choosing a cheaper and closer college in Atlanta. But I really loved Liberty when I came to visit for "college for a weekend." It seemed like a great community!
That is an interesting video, but I think it is flawed. First, the video gives specific reasons why people think overpopulation is a myth, but then just says its not true without any evidence. Where are their specifics?
The first thing I think about is the millions of hungry people in the world. It is not like there is no food resource problems today, so they must have been wrong in '68.
Second, how on earth could every person on earth have a house and live on a piece of land as big as texas? I might actually do some research on that and do the math. I am specifically thinking about china and india. They have serious problems with population density.
Finally, hunger and land are not the only issues with overpopulation. The enviroment is a huge problem. Where do we put all of the waste from all of these people? How many animal's habitats do we have to destroy?
Ill do some math and get back to you. Thanks for the thought provoking video!
Hi, Im back. I did the calculations and if every family was put into Texas, they would have 0.066 acres each. That is 3,000 square feet. Not exactly a house and a yard. Oh, and that would be everyone on top of each other, no roads, stores, garages, anything.
So, I finally set up my email so that I could respond to all of your comments via email! So much easier!!
Rampant population growth threatens our economy and quality of life. I'm not talking about the obvious environmental and resource issues. I'm talking about the effect upon rising unemployment and poverty in America.
I should introduce myself. I am the author of a book titled "Five Short Blasts: A New Economic Theory Exposes The Fatal Flaw in Globalization and Its Consequences for America." To make a long story short, my theory is that, as population density rises beyond some optimum level, per capita consumption of products begins to decline out of the need to conserve space. People who live in crowded conditions simply don’t have enough space to use and store many products. This declining per capita consumption, in the face of rising productivity (per capita output, which always rises), inevitably yields rising unemployment and poverty.
This theory has huge implications for U.S. policy toward population management. Our policies that encourage high rates of population growth are rooted in the belief of economists that population growth is a good thing, fueling economic growth. Through most of human history, the interests of the common good and business (corporations) were both well-served by continuing population growth. For the common good, we needed more workers to man our factories, producing the goods needed for a high standard of living. This population growth translated into sales volume growth for corporations. Both were happy.
But, once an optimum population density is breached, their interests diverge. It is in the best interest of the common good to stabilize the population, avoiding an erosion of our quality of life through high unemployment and poverty. However, it is still in the interest of corporations to fuel population growth because, even though per capita consumption goes into decline, total consumption still increases. We now find ourselves in the position of having corporations and economists influencing public policy in a direction that is not in the best interest of the common good.
The U.N. ranks the U.S. with eight third world countries - India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Uganda, Ethiopia and China - as accounting for fully half of the world’s population growth by 2050.
If you’re interested in learning more about this important new economic theory, I invite you to visit either of my web sites at OpenWindowPublishingCo.com or PeteMurphy.wordpress.com where you can read the preface, join in my blog discussion and, of course, purchase the book if you like. (It's also available at Amazon.com.)
Pete Murphy
Author, "Five Short Blasts"
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